Kintsugi- A Philosophical Approach to Ceramics

Rooted in ancient Japanese philosophy, Kinstugi also called Kintsukuroi is the art of embracing damage and imperfections.

Mono No Aware, literally “the pathos of things”, and also translated as “an empathy toward things”, or “a sensitivity to ephemera”, is a Japanese term for the awareness of transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.

SOURCE: Wikipedia – Mono No Aware

The life of inanimate objects like animate is bound to similar events. Our broken hearts yearn to mend and once we nurture those wounds and heal in our own ways we feel more radiant at the end of it.

Sometimes we observe that people do a bad patch up job and lose a sense of self and life. It stops brewing within them and the cracks and scars remain a part of them till decay.

Kintsugi- Treating a broken ceramic object with golden and lacquer to make it more beautiful and attractive evolved to become an art form after many years of mending broken pottery with lacquer existed. But before it turned into meditative art became it was only meant to fix things just enough to be usable again.

This process and result are meant to be symbolic of many things but to me, it remains this, if you choose to mend cracks in your soul with love and adoration- self-love – you will in return ornament your entire being instead of mindlessly picking at scabs.

This art has gained much popularity in recent times. Let’s hope that we may be able to embrace the imperfections within us and the world around us. Only then will we know the best way to cope with them and gradually beautify our scars.

The philosophy behind Kintsugi is a confluence of three very potent rivers of thought from Asian Philosophy. Zen, Mono No Aware, and Wabi Sabi come together as one in the art of Kintsugi to teach us about impermanence and imperfection. Repair requires transformation and that cracks hold a philosophical merit and significance all on their own.

Zen emphasizeszazen:meditationas the means to awakening.Zen meditation ideally is not only concentration, but also awareness: being aware of the continuing changes in our consciousness, of all our sensations and our automatic reactions.

SOURCE: Wikipedia- Japanese Zen

This combined with

ManyJapanese artsover the past thousand years that have been influenced byZen andMahayanaphilosophy, particularly acceptance and contemplation of the constantfluxof all things. Such arts can exemplify a wabi-sabi a esthetic.

SOURCE: Wikipedia – Wabi Sabi

Supplement your explorations of Kintsukuroi with these reads available on Amazon Kindle.